“Yes, it did,” Brandi insisted with a grin. “The bears could have been abducted, but they weren’t. They’re coming to Alaska. You have to count that as a plan win.”
Reed blew out a breath. He wondered if they were hurting Katarina. The thought made his blood boil. “But one of us got abducted making your plan happen. That is not a win.”
Brandi groaned. “You sound like Gareth. Nobody—and I repeat, nobody—could have predicted that attack on the bears so soon after the bad guys tried to burn your village down. We’re damn lucky Katarina and Stewart stopped them cold before any of the bears got abducted. If you ask me, this has all worked out well considering the odds of us being here at all. What if we hadn’t been in Bear Central when those guys came? How many bears would be in their hands right now? They almost got Jon’s daughter.”
“Bear Central?” Jon interrupted Brandi’s rant to ask as he laughed.
“Code name,” Brandi said to him with a grin before turning back to Reed. “When a shit show like that happens, having only one casualty is damn good. And now she’s leading us to them. They’re going down, Reed. One day soon, we’ll get your grandsons and beta back too. Then you and your people won’t have to keep looking over your shoulders all the time.”
Reed nodded reluctantly. “I am seeing a side of you that makes me wonder how Gareth Longfeather copes.”
“Thanks… Dad,” Brandi said with a chuckle. “Don’t you care how I cope with him?”
“I think you could take on an entire war by yourself and come out okay,” Reed admitted.
Brandi laughed and threw herself at Reed to hug him. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you.”
“It wasn’t really meant as a compliment,” Reed grumbled as he hugged back.
Brandi pulled away. “It will be when we get Katarina back. You’ll see.” She nodded her head at the helicopter. “Let’s check for supplies. I bet they have packs with emergency rations and tools stashed somewhere. We might need them.”
“What are you planning?” Reed asked.
Brandi lifted her chin and stared at her alpha prime. “I’m planning to tag you with a tracker like Katarina’s and drop you off where she’s being held. Your job will be to watch and report to us if they try to move her. Gareth and I will see the bears off and then head your way to help bust her out. Ariel and Heidi will be at the village with Yana to greet the bears when they arrive.”
Reed nodded. “I like that plan.” Except for the part about watching Katarina’s kidnappers and doing nothing.
7
She’d spoken nothing but Russian since she’d woke up in an electrified cage. Her abductors did not deserve the politeness of English.
Though both hungry and thirsty, Katarina refused to eat any of their food offerings. She remembered well Heidi and Yana’s stories about being drugged with food and drink during their capture.
If they thought someone like her would wake up on a medical table and not kill everyone poking at her with needles and knives, they would get a big surprise. She was Russian alpha wolf. They would get fangs and claws. She was not soft-hearted Healer or young untrained wolf like her sister.
She growled low in her throat and called them bastards in her native tongue while she glared at her guards. The human men wore masks and tried hard never to look at her. Her blood boiled with the desire to spill theirs. If she saw any sign they had taken Stewart and Terra too, she would destroy the cage to get to them, even if it meant her death while trying.
What she had not counted on were the two wolves walking into the room to smile at her.
“Fuck,” she said in English, forgetting her Russian vow. Her worst fears came to life as the larger of the two males laughed at her predicament.
“Come now, daughter. You should be appreciative. Your captors are kind because you are worth great deal of money to them.”
“And to you as well?” Katarina demanded, snarling at the male responsible for her existence.
He shook his finger. “I refuse to answer surly question. You should be respectful of your father.”
“And you should be afraid of betraying your alpha daughter,” Katarina replied.
She turned to stare at the man standing next to her father. He was easily recognizable. “Even now, your grandfather works to save you and here you wait to betray him. What is your name? Or should I call you Bastard Clone like others?”
The wolf scoffed at her sarcasm. She enjoyed knowing she’d irritated him.
“My name is Joshua and my grandfather is a wolf relic who needs be buried. An evolution is taking place, and he refuses to see it.”
“He sees it,” Katarina said flatly. She lifted a finger and pointed. “You are enigma, Clone Joshua. How is it sons look normal and grandsons look exactly like grandfather? Black Wolf genes are strange. Me? I look like dead mother.”
She turned to sneer at the man who killed her maternal parent. “All I have from wolf sire is evil heart. Once I regretted this. Now I think it will be useful thing when I get chance to kill everyone.”
Reed’s grandson laughed at her statement. Maybe the electrified cage lured him into a false sense of safety. Katarina couldn’t be sure. His amusement made her ego-driven father glare at them both because he hated to be laughed at by anyone. It was so… stupidly political.
Katarina turned her head and spoke again to Reed’s clone. “They took two grandsons. Where is other one?”
“Last time I saw Adam, he was in the cage next to the former beta who’s getting lessons about how to live a better beastly life. My cousin actually believes all that ancient shit my grandfather keeps shoveling out to our misguided people,” he answered.
Katarina closed her eyes. Reed’s poor beta. He had become an experiment. She needed to find out where he and the good grandson were being held. That might mean waiting a while in this cage. It would be hard not to drink or eat. She would suffer… but when she got free, she would make others suffer.
Except for her father. Her father she would kill. She should have killed him long ago.
Katarina hoped her glare combined with a wide smile reflected all the evil working in her heart as she stared at Clone Joshua. The cowardly wolf looked down and away. It brought forward a laugh born of power. Something inside her squirmed and wanted to be set loose.
“Your government has scientists too, Clone Joshua. They are coming for those who paid you. They are coming for everyone here. They will kill you for betraying your pack if I don’t do it first.”
“Your warnings do not scare me,” he declared.
Katarina laughed loudly. The sound echoed in the room. “A smart wolf does not expect someone stupid to believe truth. You need proof, yes? Proof I am happy to provide you. I swear on spirit of Nicolai Vashchenko that soon you will have your proof.”
“Vashchenko was a traitor to his original pack.”
“Nyet. Nicolai left pack who killed his mate to find people who were kind to each other,” Katarina argued. “He saved me from Clone Travis so I could be here now.” She shook her finger. “If you want to see true traitor, look in mirror, boy.”